Review: The Overstory

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Cover image of "The Overstory" by Richard Powers

The Overstory

The Overstory, Richard Powers. W. W. Norton & Co. (ISBN: 9780393356687) 2018.

Summary: Eight stories of nine people who lives intersect with trees and forests, whose lives, deaths, and survival are the real story.

I missed this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel when it was first published. But it kept surfacing in friends’ recommendations until I finally picked up a copy. While the story revolves around nine people, it is really the story of trees in North America, the wonder of their existence, and their plight. The novel’s organization into four parts reflects this focus: Roots, Trunk, Crown, Seeds.

In “Roots” we meet nine people in eight stories (one is a couple). In each story, their lives intersect in some ways. They range from a hearing-impaired botanist ahead of her time in discovering how trees communicate, dismissed for many years by the scientific community to a Vietnam vet whose life is saved in a plane crash by a tree. We meet a couple planted a tree in their backyard each anniversary until they began to drift apart. They are on the point of a divorce when he has a stroke. She stays and they bond over studying the forest in their backyard, including the scientist’s book. Another is an Indian boy, paralyzed when he fell from a tree, who invents a hugely successful online game while another engineer is radicalized when the tree outside her office is cut down.

In “Trunk” their stories begin to connect, like the roots of trees in a forest. Five become environmental activists, part of a movement engaged in increasingly risky actions to stop logging companies, including a couple living an amazing existence on a high platform in an old redwood marked for harvesting. Meanwhile, other researchers vindicate the botanist’s research. As an expert, she testifies in attempts to block logging. In the end, money wins over truth.

“Crown” follows a climactic event that resulted in the death of one of the activists and the dispersal of the others, and the subsequent lives of others, and in some cases, their deaths. “Seeds” describes the ways the survivors find meaning as the destruction of forests and our eco-system continues.

Woven through the account are trees. There is the chestnut on an Iowa farm that survived the blight killing all the trees in the east. A farm family chronicles in images its growth over several generations. The scientist travels the world, harvesting seeds, to create a kind of “ark”. A psych researcher is transformed into a radical after a night high up in a redwood. Especially through the scientist, we learn of the wondrous life of trees and the community they form in a forest.

It is this aspect that makes the book so compelling. The novel makes me look at the trees in my own yard differently, including the roots I encounter when I dig in most parts of the yard. It also raises an existential question. How does one live, when we seem hell-bent on destroying the very things on which our lives depend?

Review: Ezra-Nehemiah

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Cover image of "Ezra-Nehemiah" by Deborah Ann Appler and Terry Ann Smith

Ezra-Nehemiah

Ezra-Nehemiah (Wisdom Commentary, 14) Deborah Ann Appler and Terry Ann Smith. Liturgical Press (ISBN: 9780814681138) 2025.

Summary: A feminist commentary with background and intersectional analysis of power, ethnicity, race, class, and gender in the text.

The Wisdom Commentary series from Liturgical Press is dedicated to feminist interpretation of biblical texts. This includes foregrounding texts involving women but also brings feminist analysis in a broader sense to the whole of a text. And this means noting the hidden presence of women in places where the text is silent and the cultural situation of women. In addition, feminist interpretation includes an intersectional analysis of not only gender dynamics but also the intersection of power and authority, race and ethnicity, and class in a given text. This is important in the study of Ezra-Nehemiah. While women are mostly absent in the text, power, class, and ethnicity play an important part. Often, other commentaries overlook this.

I will note a few other general features. One is the inclusion of the NRSVue text in the commentary. The second is the treatment of the text in blocks rather than verse by verse. Finally, there is a commitment to interpretive and religious pluralism in the text. Additional contributors offer their own perspectives at various points. For example, in the Nehemiah commentary on sabbath, Rabbi Sonja K. Pilz offers her interpretation and reading of Kabbalat Shabbat (Welcoming Sabbath)

In my review, I will highlight several of the illuminating discussions in the commentary. The first concerned the gender identity of Nehemiah. The commentators raise the question of whether Nehemiah, as a court official, was a eunuch. This may provide one explanation for his expressed unworthiness to enter the temple. We can’t know for sure, but it is plausible.

A larger issue is the power dynamics between Persia and the repatriates. Likewise, consider the relationship of repatriates, empowered by Persia, to the indigenous people, both Jewish and non-Jewish. The commentators read the conflicts in Ezra and Nehemiah not merely as an effort to maintain identity and purity. They also explore the assertion of power by the arriving repatriates that upsets working relationships among the indigenous inhabitants of the land. They raise questions about the exclusory use of power of the repatriates.

These factors also come into play in the texts in both Ezra and Nehemiah involving separating and sending away the foreign wives and their children of Jewish men. The commentators read this “against the grain” of typical assertions of religious and ethnic identity. It is an early form of family separation in which the women had no voice. The commentators raise the question of other exceptions made for foreign women, including Ruth the Moabitess.

Ruth strike me as an interesting case. Ruth clearly renounces her Moabite identity and religion to embrace that of Naomi. We do not know whether this was the case with any of the foreign wives or whether this was an option. Could there have been a “path to citizenship” that allowed for these thing? Instead, there was a categorical and draconian exclusion on several occasions.

While I could not accept every interpretation of the authors, I found this commentary opening new dimensions of what I thought was a well-known text. I appreciated the readability of the text, and setting the biblical text alongside the commentary. At the same time, scholarship was not sacrificed for readability, particularly as it concerned cultural backgrounds. I’m grateful for the growing number of commentaries by women, people of color, and from those representing different parts of the church. Too late, I have realized the cultural blinders I’ve lived with. It’s time to prepare to join that great community of every people of every identity who will be praising and proclaiming the Lamb.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Suicide and the Communion of Saints

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Cover image of "Suicide and the Communion of Saints" by Rhonda Mawhood Lee

Suicide and the Communion of Saints

Suicide and the Communion of Saints, Rhonda Mawhood Lee. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884718) 2025.

Summary: A healing approach for those affected by suicide, addressing traditional Christian teaching.

Content warning: This post deals with the topic of death by suicide. If someone close to you has died in this way recently, in the author’s words “today is probably not the day to read this book” or review, but rather to care for yourself and receive the care of others. Likewise, if you are currently facing emotional distress or having thoughts of ending your life, help is available at the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US) 24/7/365.

The text came this past Saturday. I learned from a friend that a person known to both of us had died by suicide. Suddenly, the topic of this book became very real. The individual was a person of faith in the prime of life. Beyond the shock and sadness of this untimely death, there was the deep grief of an elderly father who was very close to his adult child.

For many Christians, there is an added theological layer to this tragedy. How is one to think about the act of taking one’s life? And how is one to think of the state of their soul? And pastorally, we wonder, how might we most sensitively and helpfully care for the bereaved?

Rhonda Mawhood Lee is a pastor and spiritual director who has wrestled with these questions not only in caring for parishioners but also in her own family. Her mother, after a long struggle with depression, took her life at age 52. As the author delved more deeply into her family history, she discovered a pattern of such deaths.

Thus, Lee writes out of deep personal and pastoral care with both honesty and compassion. First of all, she clearly sets out her own position. While death is never God’s will for us, but rather life in Christ, suicide manifests the fallen reality in which we live, one we stand against by God’s grace. That said, she will not judge whether the person who dies by suicide has sinned. Rather, she commends the power of the resurrected Christ and the mercy of the Father as our common hope for ourselves and the one who has died.

Then, the first part of the book discusses how the church has dealt with self-inflicted death. Before discussing this, she briefly addresses how we speak of suicide. She argues against the phrase “commit suicide” as one that carries judgement in the word “commit.” Rather she suggests people “attempt suicide,”, “made an attempt,” “died by suicide,” or “took his/her life.” From here, she considers the few incidents of suicide in the Bible. She notes that it says little overtly and does not condemn suicide in the stories where it occurs. She observes that the most famous incident, that of Judas, is ambiguous, considering the two differing accounts of his death.

Rather, the problems have arisen out of theological formulations, particular those of Augustine and Aquinas. While Augustine deals with some sensitivity to the case of women choosing suicide over rape, he argues for choosing life. Aquinas is stronger, characterizing suicide as a mortal sin. Lee goes on to explore some of the unintended consequences of this theology such as suicide by proxy and murder/suicide. Then, consistent with her ideas of our fallen context, she explores the incidence of suicide in oppressive situations like slave ships and other exacerbating contexts.

The second part of the book explores the significance of the communion of saints. She speaks of how those in suicidal distress have a kind of constricted vision and that the community may be the ones who accompany them in hope and faith, whether in life or death. She notes how Dorothy Day prayed for those who died by suicide. But there is also the caring community calling out, as Paul did with the Philippian jailer, “Do not harm yourself, for we are with you.” She offers practical help in addressing how we invite people to talk who give hints of suicidal ideation. She also bluntly urges helping suicidal persons to get rid of their guns.

Finally, she explores how we grieve and remember those who have died. She discusses how we talk to children. And she concludes with leaning into our resurrection hope and that those we’ve lost are yet a part of the communion of saints. She recounts asking her parents, both who ultimately died by suicide, to pray for someone she was deeply concerned for as those who understood.

Not all of us may be comfortable with the idea of praying for the dead, or asking their prayers. However, the compassionate, non-judgmental approach she commends reflects both pastoral wisdom and a deep faith in the wideness of God’s mercy and the power of the resurrection to triumph over death. She shows how theology not supported by scripture has proven harmful. And she gives practical counsel for how we may walk in communion with those struggling with suicide. This brief book is filled with pastoral wisdom vital in a time of rising rates of suicide.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings

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Cover image of "Israel's Scriptures in Early Christian Writings" edited by Matthias Henze and David Lincicum

Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings

Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings, edited by Matthias Henze and David Lincicum. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802874443) 2023.

Summary: How Jewish scriptures were used in the New Testament and in other early Christian writings.

The Jewish scriptures were the only “Bible” of the New Testament writers and important for other early Christian writers along with the coalescing collection of texts that make up our New Testament. But what constituted “Jewish scripture” particularly for first and second century CE writers? What materials were particularly important and how did writers appropriate these materials? It is with all these questions that this major reference work of essays concerns itself.

In the Introduction, the editors set up a fourfold system for classifying use of the Old Testament: marked citation, unmarked citation, verbal allusion, and conceptual allusion. Contributors use this system with a high degree of consistency throughout the volume. Then, the remainder of the book consists of five sections of essays, on each of which I will comment briefly.

Contexts

The section begins by asking “what were the “scriptures” in Jesus time?” This is important because no “canon” existed of these scriptures. The following six chapters consider the reuse of scripture in the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, in early Jewish literature, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in Philo and the Alexandrian tradition, and in Josephus.

Israel’s Scriptures in the New Testament

Seventeen chapters make up this section, a major portion of the book. The writers consider every New Testament book. However, this is not in commentary form. Rather essayists note the uses of scripture under the four categories noted above. It is interesting, for example, to note the number of texts Matthew cites whereas the bulk of John’s use is allusions. Likewise, it is interesting to see how Paul’s use of scripture varies from letter to letter.

Themes and Topics From Scriptures in the New Testament

Here, eight chapters consider the use of Jewish scripture under the topics of God, Messiah, Holy Spirit, Covenant, Law, Wisdom, Liturgy and Prayer, and Eschatology. Of the essays in this section, I especially valued the one on Messiah. It demonstrated both a coherent messianism, and yet no monolithic “messianic idea.”

Tracing Israel’s Scriptures

This part of the work studies four books that make up a major part of the New Testament use of Jewish scripture: Deuteronomy, Isaiah, the Psalms, and Daniel. Each chapter explores the uses of the book throughout the New Testament. Then the final chapter considers key persons from the Jewish scriptures throughout the New Testament: Abraham, Moses, David, Jacob, Joseph, and Elijah. The essay also considers lesser known female figures including Eve, Hagar, Sarah, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.

Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christianity Outside the New Testament

Finally, the editors offer a helpful extension of this study beyond the horizon of the New Testament. Essays include studies of the use of Jewish scriptures in the apocryphal gospels and apocalypses, in Adversus Judaeos literature, in Marcion and the critical tradition. It was fascinating, in Adversus Judaeos, to see how Christian writers used scripture as a key source of authority as they engaged Jewish opponents to their message. The concluding essay is wonderful icing on the cake in the form of looking at the use of Israel’s scripture in early pictorial art.

Concluding Comments

I appreciated the breadth of this work not only in the consistent use of the four-fold classification but also in keeping each essay at a manageable length, important in such a long work. Yet for all that, the depth of scholarship, evident in citations and bibliography, is impressive. I suspect, unlike this reviewer, most readers won’t read this straight through. Rather, it serves as a helpful reference work, whether for addressing the Jewish scriptural background to the New Testament, for exegesis of particular books, or for biblical themes. And if you are concerned with the relationship of the two testaments, this is an absolute must read.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

The Weekly Wrap: February 15-21

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The Weekly Wrap: February 15-21

Am I Being Shelfish?

Do you have more books than shelves to put them on? So do I. And so do most bibliophiles I know. Books on tops of books. Books behind books. And books in piles on any available flat surface. I’ve used all those strategies.

I look enviously at those images on social media of elegant shelves of books lining the wall of a study. There is a wall in my office that is a mix of shelves, storage, and a low table. I dream of converting it to a wall of shelves.

And I realize that I would probably have those shelves immediately filled.

Then, in moments of stark realism, I realize I’m in my eighth decade. One way or another, the day is coming when those books must be disposed of. Perhaps it is time to think about shrinking my books to the shelves I have. My fifties might have been the time for that wall of shelves.

Sure, bibliophiles like Umberto Eco built huge libraries of books (50,000 in his case). But it seems to me that it might make more sense to pare my books to the ones I treasure. I have enough shelves for those.

Five Articles Worth Reading

I’ve read a couple of books recently that incorporate the idea of conferring personhood on nature. Another approach is to calculate the cost to nature of economic activity. Nick Summer reviews three new books that explore this idea in “Want to Put a Price Tag on Nature? Ask an Economist.”

I’m glad I’m not the only one put off by the look-alike book covers in the fiction sections of bookstores. Ted Gioia argues that the death of midlist publishing is part of the reason in “The Day NY Publishing Lost Its Soul.”

Yascha Monk argues that his colleagues in academia are wrong that AI is not creative or intelligent, that these tools are “stochastic parrots [that] can do some impressive things like summarize an email or write boilerplate corporate language; but they are congenitally incapable of making a genuine intellectual or artistic contribution.” In “The Humanities Are About to Be Automated” he describes how he used Claude, an AI tool, to create a credible academic paper in two hours. And he includes the paper.

Then there is the technology of war. In the past, it was aircraft, ships, armaments. People are present in the place where these are utilized. But the new face of warfare is drones. Nic Rowan explores the impact of this new dimension of warfare in Ukraine in “A Kiss in the Killhouse.”

Finally, there are times when it is hard to find time to read. Bekah Waalkes recommends “Seven Books to Read When You Have No Time to Read.” One of her recommendations was Ali Smith’s Gliff which I thoroughly enjoyed last year.

Quote of the Week

Jewish novelist Chaim Potok is one of my favorite authors. His birthday was February 17, 1929. He offers this delightful invitation:

“Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things.”

Of course, the books we are reading are among those happy things!

Miscellaneous Musings

In the Introduction to Book and Dagger, Elyse Graham quotes this statement from Jewish writer Heinrich Heine: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people too.” She notes Germany began burning books in 1933 and began burning people in 1941. This makes me think about thresholds. When we breach one, burning or banning books, and get away with it, we are emboldened to breach others including getting rid of people we consider a threat. While we are not yet burning people, we are banning, disappearing and deporting those we don’t like, and not just those here illegally, in the United States. In the last ten years, we began increased efforts to ban books. Now we are buying warehouses around the country to “detain” refugees for “vetting,” even though the refugees came here legally and most have no criminal record. It should trouble all of us. If we accept all these things, it won’t end with them.

I’ve been reading a book on fact-checking. I find it challenging to see the rigorous standards for those who do this for a living, many as free-lancers. More of us are publishing than ever. I personally think all of us who publish in any form, including re-posting memes making claims, have the obligation to check our facts, if we care about truth and not just rhetoric. But that is a big “if’ that I think we increasingly are indifferent to.

I’m reading my second Jane Austen novel, Mansfield Park. There is a play that occupies a lot of space in the novel and I’m curious how much will turn on that play. And I find myself rooting for Fanny Price.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Matthias Henze and David Lincicum, editors, Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings

Tuesday: Rhonda Mawhood Lee, Suicide and the Communion of the Saints

Wednesday: Deborah Ann Appler and Terry Ann Smith, Ezra-Nehemiah

Thursday: Richard Powers, The Overstory

Friday: Karen J. Johnson, Ordinary Heroes of Racial Justice

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap  for February 15-21.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Review: In the Stillness, Waiting

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Cover image of "In The Stillness, Waiting" by Nicholas Worssam, SSF

In the Stillness, Waiting

In the Stillness, Waiting, Nicholas Worssam, SFF. Liturgical Press (ISBN: 9798400802317) 2025.

Summary: The wisdom of Eastern Orthodox saints on contemplative discipleship reflected in the Jesus Prayer.

One of the gifts of the Eastern Orthodox churches to the whole of the Christian community is the Jesus Prayer. This is also known as the prayer of the heart. In its most familiar form, it is the single petition, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” One can also shorten it in various ways. It is typical to pray this softly or silently repeatedly, coming to a place of stillness before God. As such, it is an expression of the yearning of our hearts for God above all. Thus, it serves as a kind of doorway into contemplative prayer.

Nicholas Worssam, SSF, a Franciscan friar and theologian, begins from this place and introduces us to the saints within Eastern Orthodoxy. These are monastics for the most part, who explored the frontiers of this prayer and the depths of contemplative practice. Among those the reader will meet Evagrius of Pontus, Syncletica and the Desert Mothers, John Climacus, Isaac of Syria, Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas.

On one hand, each has distinctive insights into the spiritual journey, reflecting his or her own journey. But at the same time, several themes recur: stillness and silence, the solitude of the wilderness, the recognition of bodily passions and how they may distract, and the processes by which the contemplative may come to a purity of heart. Evagrius is of note in his identification of the eight passions, a precursor to the modern Enneagram. There is also the movement from head or intellectual knowledge of God ascending to the wordless love of God of the heart. And when one is filled with the compassion of God this eventuates in compassionate actions in the world.

Each of the chapters includes questions for reflection and discussion. Worssam provides suggestions for further reading. We hear the Fathers (and Mothers!) in their own words. Not only does this instruct in contemplative practice. It also introduces us to their writings, whetting our appetites for me. For all these reasons, this is a valuable introduction to both the history and practice of contemplative prayer, beginning with the Jesus prayer.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Is a River Alive?

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Cover image of "Is a River Alive?|" by Robert McFarlane

Is a River Alive?

Is a River Alive?, Robert McFarlane. W.W. Norton & Co. (ISBN: 9781324130734) 2025.

Summary: A nature writer weighs the question of rivers as living entities with rights as he explores three river systems.

Is a river an “it” or a “who”? When human activity endangers their flourishing, do we defend rivers as living beings with rights? These are the questions in the back of Robert McFarlane’s mind as he embarks on an exploration of three river systems. A dead giveaway is that for McFarlane, rivers are “whos.” Yet when he discusses the question with his son early in the book, it seems still to be an open question. For the son of a naturalist, the answer is “Duh, of course!” But it’s not so easy. How can something represented by people be alive?

He begins with the Rio de los Cedros in Ecuador. The Ecuadorian constitution recognizes and protects it as a legal person. His journey is one of discovering what, or who, is this protected river? He describes a wondrous landscape of a river rising in the midst of a cloud forest. One in the expedition studies mushrooms and finds several rare ones. He realizes there are several rivers, one underground in the channels of roots and fungi, the river that runs before them, and an atmospheric river above.

The second journey is to a river system of several rivers running through industrial Chennai, one that begins full of life but dies as it reaches the coast. One area is even erased from the maps, its existence no longer acknowledged. Erasure does not only happen to peoples. The account closes at the coast, and has McFarlane joining a group rescuing sea turtle eggs.

Finally, he journeys 600 miles northeast of Montreal, to explore Mutehekau Shipu, as the indigenous peoples call it. The river descends through a series of rapids to eventually empty into the St. Lawrence. As part of Canada’s hydroelectric boom, planners want to dam parts of it, a move indigenous groups are resisting. Before departing, a wise woman, Rita says, “To you, Robert, I would say this: don’t think too much with your head. Forget your notebooks on the river; leave them behind.” She encourages him to think like the river, to be a river. And over the course of the journey, this happens, even as he is nearly smashed to bits negotiating a set of rapids. Alive? This river throbs with a force all its own.

The trips are punctuated by visits in different seasons to a spring near his home, during a drought when it is nearly dried up, and later, when it has been replenished. The delight in reading McFarlane is how observant both of the familiar and the new and his ability to capture it in words.

Coming back to the question of the book I find myself cautious about the incipient animism of the book. Yet rivers do represent life even in Judeo-Christian scripture. The descriptions in this book portray each of the places as living, dynamic systems, not merely “natural resources.” However, we do not need to confer personhood on rivers to protect and seek their flourishing, which ultimately is our own. I grew up near the juncture of Mill Creek and the Mahoning River in Youngstown. A visionary lawyer protected the former. Our steel industries turned the latter into a dying industrial river. At one time it was the most polluted in the country. This book similarly juxtaposes flourishing and dying rivers and how all are endangered by human enterprise. So which will we choose?

Review: Christ in Our Midst

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Cover image of "Christ in Our Midst"

Christ in Our Midst

Christ in Our Midst, Editors at Paraclete Press with chant by The Gloriae Dei Cantores Schola. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9798893480283) 2025.

Summary: An artfully designed Lenten daily devotional incorporating chant, scripture, reflections, and journaling questions.

Another type of Lenten devotional includes a scripture text and reflection, often related to lectionary readings or simply the journey from Ash Wednesday to Holy Week. This Lenten devotional follows that model with a wonderful addition. It incorporates chants tied to the scripture readings for each day. The chant text and musical notation appears opposite the reflection. A QR code allows you to listen to a recording of the chant performed by The Gloriae Dei Cantores Schola.

Chants are provided for Ash Wednesday and each of the three days until the first Sunday of Lent. Beginning on the first Sunday of Lent, the chant is printed on that day and repeated throughout the week, with the QR code with each daily reading. Then chants are provided for each day of Holy Week, culminating with Easter. Finally, a chant is provided for Easter Monday, which serves as the theme for the Easter Week readings.

For those new to chant, there is an explanation of the history of chant and how the musical notation, consisting of square notes on a four line staff, works. I also learned that in contrast to regular musical notation, where the pitch of each note is absolute, pitch in chant is relative. In addition, since the chants are in Latin, a Latin pronunciation guide is offered. Nearly all of them are scriptural texts. The editors note that one of the reasons to use Latin is to provide a universal language for the church’s sung prayers. Many of the chants, or antiphons, are brief, from 25 to 50 seconds. There are several longer ones on key Holy Days, such as the beautiful “Ubi Caritas” on Holy Thursday. Finally, the intent is that we not only listen but join in singing, which I found myself doing.

I appreciated how well connected the chants were with the readings. For example, beginning with the fourth Sunday in Lent, the chant is “Ego sum resurrectio,” or “I am the resurrection and the life.” Each of the readings, beginning with the raising of Lazarus, explore our resurrection hope, a theme I found particularly meaningful in this first reading.

In addition to these elements, a reflection prompt and journaling space is proved for each day. Drawings of wildflowers set off each section. The devotional is hardbound with a ribbon marker.

I found that the incorporation of chant quieted my mind to receive and reflect upon scripture. This is a devotional I hope to return to in future Lenten seasons. I also want to acknowledge that I know I’m posting this on Ash Wednesday. But if you order this today, most shippers will have it to you within days for your use throughout Lent. (And it is OK to play catch-up!)

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Meeting God in John

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Cover image of "Meeting God in John" by David F. Ford

Meeting God in John

Meeting God in John: Inspiration and Encouragement from the Fourth Gospel, David F. Ford. Brazos Press (ISBN: 9781587437069) 2026.

Summary: A Lenten devotional, offering reflections from John’s gospel on meeting God as he is revealed in Jesus.

Another kind of Lenten devotional follows a particular text or texts in scripture. In this case, David F. Ford offers guided reflections in reading the Gospel of John. For Ford, this was an extension of a twenty-year effort to write a commentary on John. Here, working with church leaders, he distills his insights into a compact resource to use over the course of Lent, during holy Week, and into Eastertide. The book is equally usable by individuals or groups, or perhaps for a whole congregation.

A brief introduction elaborates the two purpose for which John wrote the gospel as stated in John 20:30-31. Ford rephrases this as follows:

“John’s Gospel is about meeting and trusting God through meeting and trusting Jesus, and then maturing into that core relationship of being loved and learning to love, open to the superabundant life he gives” (p. 2)

He follows this discussion with brief suggestions for the book’s use.

The first part of the book consists of five chapters, one for each of the five weeks of Lent. The first chapter focuses on John’s Prologue: how it speaks to our quest for meaning, the loving relationship between Father and Son pervades the whole, and how the Prologue centers on Jesus. The next three chapters focus on three questions. The second chapter centers on the question of identity: who are you? The Baptist’s “I am nots” yield to Jesus revelation of who he is to the Samaritan woman in John 4.

Then chapter three explores Jesus’ question to Simon and Andrew: what are you looking for? It’s the question of desire and Ford explores the different desires that led people to seek out Jesus as well as our own culture’s desires. Thirdly, in chapter four, the disciples ask “Where are you staying?” This is the longing for home, answered by Jesus invitation to “remain” with him and its ultimate expression in the allegory of the Vine. Finally, chapter five contends that glory is the inevitable consequence of meeting God in Christ. The ultimate manifestation of that glory is in the cross, revealing God’s deep heart of love.

The second part, in three chapters covers holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. On Holy Thursday, in the washing of feet, Jesus reveals his love for his disciples–received by the Beloved disciple, denied by Peter, and betrayed by Judas. On Good Friday, the trial revealed Jesus in truth, the cross reveals his love, intimately for his mother and expansively for the world, and his death addresses suffering, sin, death, and evil. Then on Easter, we celebrate the great surprise, revealed first to Mary, the apostle to the apostles, and to the disciples, now “sent ones” into the world, given his Spirit.

Finally, part three, read in the weeks after Easter, picks up on how we are part of the ongoing story. We share in the lessons taught the disciples, to be a learning, praying, and loving people. In his conclusion, he describes that as being called into God, into community, and into the world.

Several appendices take us deeper into the study of John. Appendix A parallels John 17 and the Lord’s Prayer. Appendix B offers a ninety day reading plan to read through John. Some use this for a year or longer. Sadly, the plan leaves off at day 83, an error that will hopefully be corrected in reprintings. In the first chapter, Ford alludes to the breadth of theology, which Appendix C fleshes out in reproducing the table of contents from another book by the author. Finally, Appendix D addresses the hope for Christian unity, prayed for by Jesus in John 17.

Ford does all this in 160 pages. Each chapter includes reflection questions for individuals or groups. In conclusion, Ford has done an amazing thing in distilling twenty years of study into a guide any congregant or inquirer may use.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Bread and Wine

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Cover image "Bread and Wine" by editors at Plough Publishing.

Bread and Wine

Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Second Edition), editors at Plough Publishing. Plough Publishing (ISBN:

Summary A collection of 96 readings from writers throughout church history spanning the season from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost.

There are a variety of ways to approach Lenten readings. My reviews for the next three days will reflect three different approaches. Today’s approach is to collect readings from a variety of writers. This collection of readings offers one of the broadest selections of readings I’ve seen both in terms of historical reach and inclusiveness across denominational and ethnic lines. The readings offered here range from early church fathers like Ignatius of Antioch and Augustine to Brennan Manning and Tish Harrison Warren. Women are well-represented, including Fleming Rutledge, Barbara Brown Taylor, Christina Rosetti, and Therese of Lisieux. Then among the non-white authors are Gonzalo Baez Camargo, Sadhu Sundhar Singh, Kwong Jeong-saeng, Kahlil Gibran, Howard Thurman, Sojourner Truth, and Shusaku Endo.

The other thing about this collection is that there are ninety-six readings in this expanded edition of an earlier publication. The expansion extends the readings into Eastertide and the period up to Pentecost. All of the readings are short, taking at most a few minutes. Many, apart from poems, are extracts from longer works. One of the values, then, of this work is to whet your appetite for great Christian writers. A section giving the sources of these works is included in the end materials. The readings are organized into seven sections. I will highlight one from each, though they are all worth reading!

Invitation

In Time for Reflection,” Howard Thurman invites us to do the hard thing of slowing down and reflecting on the “dead places” in oiur lives. We want to offer selves thar are “clear, unsullied, fresh, clean.” However we can only do so if we also offer the “tainted, painful, and tragic.”

Temptation

Fleming Rutledge’s “Too Good For Jesus” relates the stories of two women. One could not worship in a church with a crucifix behind the altar with the figure of Christ hanging on it. The other, in a Passion play could not join with a crowd crying “crucify him.” Both struggled to see the depth of human sin, their sin. They were too good for the saving work of Jesus.

Passion

G.K. Chesterton, that master of paradox, observes in “God the Rebel” the extraordinary idea that in Gethsemane, God tempted God, and did not break; that at the cross, God forsook God. Thus, for at least a moment, God was the rebel, identified with our revolt. He concludes that there is “only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”

Crucifixion

Many maintain that religion is about what we do, the doing of good works. “It is Done” by Watchman Nee begins with Jesus declaration “it is finished.” He argues that our first step of faith is to cease doing and trust in what was done for us by Jesus. For example, he describes a man who cannot forgive, no matter how hard he tries. Nee counsels, “Do nothing at all” maintained that in Christ, not only his sins but he, the unforgiving, was born away, and that he could trust Christ to do what he could not.

Resurrection

Gregory of Nazianzus, in “Today I Rise” ponders the wonder of moving from crucifying Christ to sharing in his glory, of being buried with Christ, and yet, in our sins being passed over, we escape Egypt and are alive. And what can we offer the one who has done this? Only ourselves.

New Life

Hannah Whittall Smith in “Monday Christians” decries the divorce between “religious life” and temporal life. Christ would work just as much in those who “keep the house and make the bargain.” Her point was Christ’s intention that we know his abiding presence in all of life, even in “the homely path of everyday duties.”

Pentecost

Kwon Jeong-saeng in “The Church I Dreamed Of” describes his vision of a church he never built in place of a struggling village church. Though poor, they prayed, and loved, served and gave and transformed a mountain village. Then, sadly, it gave way to authoritarianism, power, and status. Instead of trusting God, God became a convenient instrument. In place of dreams, The author describes his wish to live as did those poor villager, in loving service.

This is a collection for slow and repeated reading. Perhaps it will become one you return to year by year. And meanwhile, we can explore the riches of Christian reflections over the centuries in the works these readings represent. And all of this will hopefully remind us of Christ, our bread and wine!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.